First Community Credit Union Moving

Heidi Harris/Times-Record
This empty lot pictured in the foreground will soon be the location for a new First Community Credit Union building in Valley City. President Steve Schmidt said they hope to break ground in the spring.

The First Community Credit Union in Valley City will soon have a new home. Land has been purchased on East Main Street, on the east side of Essentia Health, that will soon be the location of a new building for the bank branch.

Steve Schmidt, president, said they closed on the purchase in December, and “our intentions are to break ground this spring.” The company is negotiating right now with a general contractor.

Schmidt said the reason they chose to purchase land for a new building is, “We wanted to do an extensive remodel, and just kind of looked at remodeling that versus starting from scratch, and it was determined this would be the best route for this.”

The current FCCU building has rental property in it, and the new building will be used soley for the FCCU.

“The part that the Credit Union is in will be as large or larger and designed better, so we can have more offices and more privacy,” Schmidt said.

Janna Bergstedt, marketing manager, said that because they’re still in the design phase, the cost is not yet known and the size isn’t determined at this time.

“We do know that there will be more room for members and also office space for staff,” she said.

Back in the 60s and 70s when that building was designed, privacy was not as big of a concern in banking and just in general,” Schmidt said, so “our intention there is that it will be better designed for our use now.”

The new building will have some room to expand staff if needed.
Schmidt said that FCCU has been remodeling and modernizing their branches across the region, and said the new building in Valley City is an investment.

“The branch is doing very well,” he said. “We have a lot of Valley City members.”

The Valley City move is part of a five-year plan.

Bergstedt said FCCU has served the community since 1979.

“We have strong ties to the community as it was the second branch opened by our Credit Union, which was founded nearly 75 years ago,” she said.
Valley City’s branch manager is Dean Rohrich, who has been with FCCU for 28 years. He began in Napoleon and also worked in Bismarck before transferring to Valley City, Bergstedt said.

The Valley City branch employs eight.

“Our Valley City location is a full-service branch, including a mortgage loan officer,” Bergstedt said.